![]() ![]() She took on a teaching job at a black public school in Marion, Virginia. Johnson was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She graduated summa cum laude in 1937, with degrees in mathematics and French, at age 18. Claytor added new mathematics courses just for Johnson. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African-American to receive a Ph.D. Multiple professors mentored her, including the chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King, who had mentored Coleman throughout high school, and W. As a student, she took every math course offered by the college. The family split their time between Institute during the school year and White Sulphur Springs in the summer.Īfter graduating from high school at 14, Johnson enrolled at West Virginia State, a historically black college. Johnson was enrolled when she was ten years old. This school was on the campus of West Virginia State College (WVSC). Because Greenbrier County did not offer public schooling for African-American students past the eighth grade, the Colemans arranged for their children to attend high school in Institute, West Virginia. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a lumberman, farmer, and handyman, and worked at the Greenbrier Hotel.Ĭoleman showed strong mathematical abilities from an early age. Johnson was born as Creola Katherine Coleman on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to Joylette Roberta (Lowe) and Joshua McKinley Coleman. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. Melvin and a NASA Group Achievement Award. In 2016, she was presented the Silver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut Leland D. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. ![]() Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist". During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. Katherine Johnson (Aug– February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. ![]()
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